One of the first things I did with my iPod touch when I got it last year was jailbreak it. And from that point on, I avoided upgrading the firmware, so that I could keep my precious illicit applications intact. Until now. Last Friday, I upgraded to 2.0, and I haven’t looked back since. While the App Store isn’t perfect, the range of applications available, from games to ebook readers, is stunningly robust. And despite the fact that Apple has vetoed certain functionality (background processes, VoIP over 3G), the App Store includes some programs that I was sure it wouldn’t, including Pandora, AOL Radio and a number of other streaming music applications. One can only wonder how AT&T will react when users start taking advantage of those “unlimited” data plans to stream Internet radio all day; drivers with long commutes and good 3G coverage could turn their iPhones into ersatz Sirius radios, minus the monthly fees. For me, the new apps make my touch a worthy replacement for my Chumby and Nokia 770, both of which I’ve put on eBay. Of course, there are some jailbreak apps that I miss, most notably Mobilecast, which allowed over-the-air downloads of podcasts. But word is the developer will have an App Store version soon enough, and my touch will then be complete.
Standard disclaimer: My opinions are mine alone and not those of my employer or anyone affiliated with my employer.

I know we’ll never review this one in Consumer Reports, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

I hosted a small conference (more of a conclave, actually, since it was a fairly small, invitation-only group) for bloggers at Consumer Reports HQ a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been too modest to post about it here (message to self: modesty and blogging are not a good combination!). Fortunately, one of the attendees, Erin Doland of Unclutterer, has a very good and flattering write-up out, in which she comments:

I’m a big fan of Consumer Reports and check it and other review sites before making most of my purchases. Being a smart consumer can take effort, but when you own few possessions, it’s important to focus on quality. Overall, I was glad to spend the day learning from others who share a similar philosophy on educated consumerism.

Her whole post is worth reading (if I do say so myself) if you want to get a better idea of what we did at the meeting (other attendees included Cap from Stop Buying Crap, Zac from WalletPop, and the inimitable Edward Dworsky, aka Mr. Consumer). We’re hoping to do more of these, so if you’re a consumer affairs blogger and want to be invited, please drop me a line.

As Bill Gates leaves Microsoft today, it’s fascinating to watch the media’s treatment of him. While just a few years ago, he was reviled as a rapacious monopolist, he’s now treated as an elder statesman. Much of that undoubtedly has to do with the good work he’s doing with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But a lot of it, I believe, also has to do with real changes that have occurred at Microsoft. The company is far more open than it was back in the early days of this century, releasing public betas of many of its products and encouraging developers to blog. The colossal failure of Vista, as well as Microsoft’s underdog status in the search market (not to mention the Zune), also help make the company seem like less of a monolithic threatening force. Microsoft may still be a powerhouse, but the company doesn’t always get what it wants, and doesn’t even dominate some core markets in which it competes. So, it’s easy to bid Bill a wistful farewell, and muse, as Engadget does today, on Microsoft’s best and worst hits of the Gates era.

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but what I do watch means a lot to me. And one thing that I’ve been watching for years is MSNBC’s election coverage. It’s a tradition I began during the long 2000 election, when I turned to the channel just about every night for the latest news on the Florida recount. And, of course, it was Tim Russert (along with Darrell Hammond and Will Ferrell) who kept me informed about the latest twists and turns of that endless—and ultimately futile—process. Later, Russert guided me through more elections, including this year’s seemingly endless primary. For me, the primary ended not when Barack Obama gave his victory speech, or when Hillary Clinton finally conceded, but when Russert declared it over after the North Carolina primary: “We now know who the Democratic nominee will be. And no one is going to dispute it.” Such was Russert’s authority that many people did indeed consider the primary season over at that point (though, of course, others continued to dispute it). Though I respected Russert’s authority, that’s not what kept drawing me back to MSNBC election after election. It was his boyish excitement, the way you could tell he just loved what he was doing. Other journalists would take on a studied cynical pose, or make breathless pronouncements, but not Russert. He was always, as Rachel Sklar recently described him, “the happiest guy at the primary.” That’s how I’ll remember him. And I’m sure I’ll do so whenever I watch election coverage, this year, and every year from now on.

Gotta represent for my day job again. Earlier this week, a group from Consumers Union launched the Cover America Tour, a nationwide RV tour to raise awareness about health care issues in the U.S. The 114-day trip will hit dozens of towns and cities across the country, and the crew will interview people along the way to capture their stories. In addition to supporting an important cause, Cover America has a great site, with a blog, Google Maps mashup and videos of real Americans talking about their health care concerns. Check it out, and if you’re in one of the towns where they’ll be making a visit, stop by the RV and meet Meg, Blake and Pauline.

Last week, I celebrated the 57th birthday of one of my boyhood idols, Jonathan Richman. Today is another notable birthday: Joey Ramone, born May 19th, 1951, also would have turned 57 this year, had he not passed away in 2001. Joey was a unique figure in the Pantheon of rock greats: 6’7” tall, rail thin, his face hidden behind dark glasses and a mop of hair; he was geeky, gawky, gifted. As a geeky, gawky high school student back in the late 70s and early 80s, it was easy for me to identify with Joey. If he could be a rock star, I could be anything I wanted to be. And that, after all, was central to the punk ethos Joey and the rest of the Ramones embodied. I saw the Ramones countless times during that period; memorized their first few albums; watched them grab at—and miss—the brass ring of commercial success with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School and the Phil Spector-produced End of the Century; and then gradually lost track of them over the intervening decades, until 2001, when, just months before he would have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joey succumbed to lymphoma. By the time Joey died, he had secured his place not just in Cleveland, but in the hearts of a new generation of neo-punks like Green Day and the Donnas, who embraced the raw, unpretentious energy of the early Ramones. He also became something of an elder statesman of the New York music scene, hosting shows at various New York venues (at one such show, Jonathan Richman performed Roadrunner at Joey’s request, quite possibly his only public peformance of the song since the early 70s). That tradition continues tonight, with the annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash at Irving Plaza. I won’t be there, but I’ll be thinking of Joey. Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us.

The first time I saw Jonathan Richman perform, nigh on 30 years ago, he was in his “second childhood” phase, and got down on all fours to sing “I’m a Little Dinosaur.” He did children’s matinees. He refused to do any material from his seminal first album, no matter how much people begged (and they did, with Freebird-like consistency). For me, it was love at first sight. At the height of the punk movement, when cynicism and nihilism were in vogue, here was a performer, a founding light of that movement (the Sex Pistols even covered him!), who reveled in hope, optimism and childlike innocence. Later, he dropped the overt references to childhood, but never lost that sense of innocence and wonder. (Even in the midst of his divorce, when he vented through bitter songs like “True Love Is Not Nice,” he still managed to pen paeans to the little things like “The Lonely Little Thrift Store”.) Today, Jonathan turns 57. And he’s still touring, recording—and glorying in the little things. If you’re not familiar with him, check him out. Now is the time. Here in the morning of your life.

I don’t talk about my day job too much here, but this is one case where I’m willing to make an exception: ConsumerReports.org has won the People’s Voice Award in the Guides/Ratings/Reviews Webby Award category. I’ll let someone else craft the five-word acceptance speech and get back to working on the (award-winning!) site. Congrats to Yelp, which won the “regular” Webby in this category, and to all of the other winners.

My month-long experiment at optimizing this site has come to a close. Of course, my SEO efforts haven’t ended, but my obsessive attention to my rankings will definitely stop. The result of my work:

Google: #8
Yahoo: #2
Live: #1
Ask: #2

In sum, my work has improved my rankings fairly dramatically on all engines except Google. This seems largely due to the fact that Google hasn’t crawled this site in nearly a month, which means most of the changes I’ve implemented are still invisible to the Big Kahuna. I’ll have to check back in a few weeks to see if there are any changes. In the meantime, here are my Top 5 Tips for Personal Site SEO, based on my experiences over the past month:

1. Update constantly.
This should be obvious, but if you’re running a personal site, it might be hard to do so. Nevertheless, it makes a huge difference, and really is a key factor in all of my improved rankings.

2. Work hard at link-building, but do it honestly.
The easiest way to build links for a personal blog is to participate in online community. Leave comments in other blogs, join forums, and link back to yourself. (Just be aware that some sites use nofollow fairly aggressively, so YMMV.) But be sure to do it in a way that makes sense. Spamming blogs will get you banned, and it’s no fun. Ultimately, you should be participating in community because you want to, not just because you want to get links.

3. Clean up your site.
Get ride of those broken links, set up appropriate internal links, and make sure your URL structure is search friendly. In short, optimize the heck out of your site, and then let it work for you.

4. Use the tools provided by the engines.
Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer are great tools. With YSE, for example, I was able to discover that one reason the village had so much credibility was because it had dozens of incoming links—most of which were from my sidebar. I quickly remedied that.

5. Take it easy.
It’s just your personal site, remember? Just publish great content and don’t sweat over SEO every day. Ranking on the first page when your competition is a a town of 12,000 people, a popular ex-legislator and a bunch of Wikipedia pages ain’t too shabby, and I’m happy to be in such company, even if I’m not in the first position. Yet.